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Gustaf finds that in the eyes of his countrymen, he is a blend of favorite nephew and Dear Abby. At an auto plant in Troll-hattan recently, an employee patted his cheek and declared, "I just wanted you to know we workers like you." Another Swede wrote the King asking him to tell his son to go for a dental checkup (which Hans Majestat duly did). Carl Gustaf has adopted the motto, "For Sweden—in keeping with the times."
For relaxation, Tjabo, as he was known to his school chums, cooks up recipes he acquires on his travels—and keeps his waist down with twice-weekly games of squash ("But the ball doesn't like me"). He wheels a blue Porsche Targa, cruises the Stockholm archipelago in a U.S.-made Magnum 35 powerboat and drives a tractor on his own 395-acre farm in eastern Sweden (the eight royal palaces are all state owned).
On June 19, in the royal spectacular of the year, Gustaf will be married to Silvia Sommerlath, 32, the bright, vivacious daughter of a West German businessman and a Brazilian aristocrat. The dark-haired, velvet-eyed Queen-to-be, a former Olympics chief hostess, spent four years learning languages (she speaks seven), and will be more than an adornment at Swedish royalty's last major function: presenting the Nobel Prize awards.
Silvia will have a more important private role. The King is the last of the royal line founded by Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, the Napoleonic marshal, and the constitution at present bars female succession. "I have to have a son to inherit the throne," Gustaf told TIME. "I have to get a son like my mother did. I have four elderly sisters, and I am the last one."
DANISH CHOICE
As free and frisky Denmark is the antithesis of dour Sweden, so are their monarchs near-opposites in temperament and tenure. Denmark's Queen Margrethe, 36, is about as formal as old blue jeans, which she wears in private. She is Europe's closest approximation to elected royalty. In Denmark until 1953, only a male heir could succeed to the throne. Since Frederik IX had three daughters and no sons, a national referendum was held that year to amend the constitution. By an overwhelming vote, eldest Daughter Margrethe, then 13 and fondly known as Pigebarnet (Little Girl), won the right of succession.
The Danes are intensely proud of their 1,000-year monarchy, Europe's oldest; their Queen is a descendant of Gorm the Old and his son Harold Bluetooth (circa 935-985), who held sway over Scotland as well as present-day Denmark. As Queen of Denmark since 1972, Margrethe dropped her many other ancestral titles ("of the Wends and Goths, Schleswig, Holstein," etc.). Friends call her Daisy.
Towering (nearly 6 ft.), attractive Margrethe is incontestably Europe's brainiest monarch. Witty in several languages, she studied at the University of Copenhagen, Aarhus and Cambridge,